This disclosure relates generally to methods and systems for color management in image/text printing or display systems, and more particularly to control based iterative profiling methods and systems for improving color rendering performance of nonlinear print engines.
Printer destination profiles are used to find device values that produce a specified color. The profiles are generally three-dimensional colorimetric-to-device lookup tables. One method of building a lookup table is to iteratively find print device values for each node in the table until the device value that produces the desired color is found. Iterations can be carried out either on the printer model or directly on the printer using a single multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) gain matrix and an integrator. This approach assumes that the print engine is linear for each node color. However, some print engines such as, e.g., solid ink printers, xerographic printers, etc., suffer from the fact that the process is nonlinear. This nonlinearity is particularly pronounced in the darker regions of their reproducible color gamut. As a result, the linear controller does not converge well, leading to contours or accuracy loss in the output images.
Consequently, it would be desirable to have a method and system for improved profiling of print systems having a nonlinear response, as well as for print systems having a linear response.